Report: Cisco Continues to Lead Switching Market

Despite ongoing competition and market transitions, Cisco continues to represent more than half (51 percent) of the combined switching and routing market, according to Q3 data from Synergy Research Group.

Cisco's market share is not uniform across different segments, with Cisco holding a 63 percent share in the enterprise router segments and a 38 percent share for service providers.

"The big picture is that total switching and router revenues are still growing, and Cisco continues to control half of the market," John Dinsdale, a chief analyst at Synergy Research Group, said in a statement.

Synergy Research Group reported that worldwide switching and router revenue exceeded $11 billion in the third quarter of 2017. Ethernet switching accounts for 60 percent of the total revenue, led by growing deployment of 100 GbE and 25 GbE switching equipment.

"Some view SDN and NFV as existential threats to Cisco’s core business, with own-design networking gear from the hyperscale cloud providers posing another big challenge," Dinsdale said. "While these are genuine issues which erode growth opportunities for networking hardware vendors, there are few signs that these are substantially impacting Cisco’s competitive market position in the short term."

Cisco reported its first quarter fiscal 2018 financial results on Nov. 15, with total revenue coming in at $12.1 billion. Infrastructure Platforms, which includes Cisco's routing and switching hardware, reported $7 billion in revenue for a four percent year-over-year decline.

While Cisco's year-over-year routing and switching revenues have declined, the company is now forging ahead with a new intent-based networking model for switching. With the intent-based model, also referred to as "Network Intuitive" by Cisco, artificial intelligence and machine learning help to direct and manage network traffic flows.

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at EnterpriseNetworkingPlanet and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.